In an air direction changing device of a conventional air conditioner, an end surface of a lateral flap provided in an outlet grille is cut off for handling condensed water during a cooling-mode operation.
A conventional direction changing device is described below by referring to the drawings.
As shown in FIG. 8, a vertical flap ill is located in an opening of an outlet grille 102 in an air conditioner 110, and a plurality of lateral flaps 101 linked with each other in an upwind side by a linking bridge are provided. As shown in FIG. 9, an end portion 104 located in the downwind side of a mounting shaft 103 of the lateral flap 101 is cut off for handling condensed water 106 during a cooling-mode operation.
However, with the conventional lateral flap 101 of such shape, when the lateral flap 101 is moved in the lateral direction during a cooling-mode operation, condensed water 106 is condensed in a surface of the lateral flap 101, as shown in FIG. 9. If the condensed water 106 drops outside from the opening of outlet grille, the condensed water 106 falls inside a room where the air conditioner 110 is placed. In order to solve this problem, the end portion 104 of lateral flap 101 in a downwind side of the mounting shaft 103, provided in a lower part of the outlet grille 102, is cut off. In this manner, the condensed water 106 adhered to the lateral flap 101 is guided toward the mounting shaft 103, moves along a lower portion of the outlet grille 102, and flows into a water collecting groove 108 in a front frame 107. However, this design incurs operating deficiencies because the lateral flap 101 is reduced in capacity of direction change, which is a primary function it should achieve, if a cut-off amount of the end portion 104 is significant. Also, if a cut-off amount of the end portion 104 is insignificant, the condensed water 106 falls inside a room.
It is an object of the present invention to solve these problems, and provide a lateral direction changing device for safely handling condensed water without reducing the direction changing capacity in a cooling-mode operation.
It is another object of the invention to provide a lateral direction changing device assuring no reduction in direction changing capacity in any operating mode of an air conditioner.